


Seven Samurai

by Sheffield



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-28
Packaged: 2017-11-21 18:25:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/600788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheffield/pseuds/Sheffield
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Imperial Residence is in lockdown as a result of the terrorist attack alluded to in my other story, "Don't Panic".  And this is what was going on elsewhere in the building...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently the world may end tomorrow. So I thought I'd launch a w.i.p.

The crash team are lovely boys, of course, but it’s the *way* they crash that’s so... disturbing, Ekaterin thought. One moment she was putting Helen Natalia to bed, the next there was a noise like a firecracker and - BAM - she was lying on the floor with a large male body on top of her and two others trying to grab her arms and pull her - presumably - to somewhere that they thought of as safety.

She heard that hiss of space grade air filtration systems kicking in that meant the door was sealed. Good. Sealed IN with her babies was one thing. Sealed outside... well, no need to think about that.

“Please unhand me,” she said gently, and the embarrassed ImpSec boy climbed off her and the two tugging at her arms retasked to help her gently to her feet. Three men were with the children, she noticed distantly, one holding an armful of half-awake toddler and two, back to back, standing between them and the world. And, actually, with two Imperial and two Vorkosigan toddlers, not to mention two doting mothers and their various belongings, the room was actually too packed with bodies for much to get in the way of anybody.

“Let... me... go!” Laisa was saying, but it wasn’t the indulgent tone Ekaterin adopted when dealing with the vagueries of her security entourage. It sounded like real... what? Anger? Distress?

Because they weren’t holding on to Laisa the way they were holding on to the children. The ImpSec body on Laisa’s right seemed to have hold of her arm in a quite extraordinary grip. He was *holding it behind her back* Ekaterin realised, the way you would hold a felon for handcuffing, not the way you would hold a protectee for um protection, the way her own men had been holding her.

If something had happened to Gregor, Ekaterin thought, it had probably happened to Miles as well. And vice versa, of course. (Honestly, the male habit of ushering “the ladies” out of the room while they snuggled over their brandies and cigars like naughty teenagers was quite...)

If anything had happened to Gregor, then the chubby baby Prince Ezar was the Emperor and Laisa was going to need all the help she could get. Ekaterin pulled herself up to her full height and her three ImpSec protectors moved automatically to flank her as she looked steadily at the men holding Laisa. When she spoke, it was full-on, no-prisoners, Milesian Lady Vorkosigan-and-don’t-you-forget-it speaking. “Unhand. The. Regent.”


	2. Chapter 2

Well would you credit it, Delia Galeni thought glumly as she stood awkwardly on the lav seat, high heeled shoes slung elegantly from the left hand that also held her bunched skirts up and out of the way, leaving her right ready for, well, anything. Olivia, in the next stall, was probably doing exactly the same as she was, she thought hopefully. Because in about two seconds the one with the projectile weapon would be banging open the lav doors searching randomly for any of his escaped hostages. Why did we have to go pee just *exactly* at the moment some ramshackle heroes manage to stage the most cack-handed revolution in Barrayar’s history, whose history was itself rich with idiotic incidents including but not limited to the Incendiary Cat Plot? But no; of the three Koudelkas in the party, two were in the lav, one of whom was pregnant in an Accident We Don’t Talk About Or I’ll Kill You (but we aren’t talking uterine replicator here) and Ma, well, Ma was coming up to sixty three and not half as fast as she had been in her guerilla fighting days.

Idiot boy with antique gun was getting closer so Delia reluctantly took the strappy little back straps of her shoes in her teeth - well, she could hardly drop them on the floor and give away her position now, could she? - and, stockinged feet against one wall, fingers against the other, silently crabbed her way up the walls to hang, spider-like, on the ceiling. But revolutionary-boy kicked door 1, door 2... and then swore noisily, turned on his heels and left, without even checking each of the stalls.

Delia dropped lightly to the floor, reluctantly put her shoes - they were silver! With little crossover straps, so pretty! - onto the vanity unit, behind the extravagant floral arrangement. Olivia hadn’t appeared yet although Delia heard her drop. Great minds and all.

And then she realised why Olivia hadn’t emerged from the stall and thought, what was the name of the general who said always take the opportunity to pee when you can, because you never know when you’ll get another chance? Right then - she darted back into her cubicle and took his advice. First things first, after all.


	3. Chapter 3

Barrayarans! Cordelia thought, although it was an amused rather than angry reflex, these days. There had been a bit of banging and, just as you would expect, both the nursery and the retiring room had been sealed off and the little band of bravoes were left without any of their top ten slate of possible hostages. Come to mamma, she thought, trying not to grin.

Alys, bless her heart, was the very picture of nervous Vor matron, leaning back in her chair and fluttering, actually fluttering, that amazing green and silver scarf thing that Simon had given her for Winterfair. Drou, bless her, had taken the hint and was fluttering too, playing hard at Old Faithful Retainer looking after Missy-With-The-Vapours. Did even Barrayarans fall for this stuff, she wondered, doing her very best to look matronly and non-threatening herself.

She picked out the leader and looked him right in the eye. “Hello,” she said cheerfully. “Can I help you?”  
"Where is Vorkosigan?" he yelled. Poor boys; as if volume were any substitute for, say, intelligence. Of either kind, come to that.  
"I am here."  
"Vorkosigan!" he yelled, firing his antique weapon noisily into a priceless piece of rococo plasterwork ceiling.  
"Vorkosigan, yes," she said mildly. "Here I am."  
Yes, see me, boy.  
"Or are you looking for my daughter in law perhaps? She was upstairs a minute ago, putting the babies to bed. Or perhaps my grandchildren? Aral Alexander and Helen Natalia?"  
Another spray of bullets into the ceiling.  
"Don't mess with me! I mean THE Vorkosigan."  
"I see," she said politely. "But I'm afraid I still *don't* see, not quite. If by "the" Vorkosigan you mean my husband Count Vorkosigan, well I think he's been locked into the retiring room. I'm awfully sorry, but you understand there are all sorts of security procedures built into the palace that I can't do anything about. Or perhaps -"she went on ruthlessly, not giving him a chance to reorganise. Because, after all, any time he spent talking to her was time he wasn't spending shooting things - or indeed people. "if you mean the Imperial Auditor Lord Vorkosigan, well, I'm afraid he's in the retiring room too. Of course there's my other son Lord Mark, the Chairman of MKV Enterprises, but I believe he's off world at present. I think it was Escobar, or was it Kibou Dani..."

"Shut up shut up shut up! Talk you to death, bloody women and their yak yak yak. Gally, find Vorkosigan."  
The one with the stunner - and what was "Gally" short for, Cordelia wondered - left and Cordelia resisted the temptation to smirk. That had done it. Mr Antique Weapon was alone with his big gun and three helpless middle aged women...


	4. Chapter 4

Lady Alys had been working the "harmless Vor lady" thing ever since the first shot had been fired so Drou wasn't surprised when she suddenly burst into helpless sobbing. With real tears, Drou noted admiringly.

"He... he... he... Cordelia.."

"SHUT HER UP!" Mr Antique Weapon yelled. Drou stepped just ever so slightly to the left.   
"Hush Milady!" she added for verisimilitude. Lady Alys sobbed louder and turned her head just ... so, displaying a fine crop of tears in the terrorist's direction. The silver wrap slipped just a little further down her shoulder, too, so there was a full-on display of Vor decolletage aimed at him, poor boy.

"What's WRONG with her?" he said desperately, moving towards them. Cordelia's lip twitched as he passed her but, Drou noted, she wisely stayed absolutely still so as not to draw his eye.

"It's all right, Milady," Drou said again carefully. Just a little closer now, she wasn't as fast as she used to be, after all. He kept coming, bless his stupid heart, and when he mooched into her killzone she moved fluently into the fifth kata, breaking his hand, turning the weapon harmlessly at the ceiling, popping his knee with a kick on the backswing. There. He was on the floor trying to scream and Lady Alys was stuffing his mouth with her silver scarf while Cordelia looked for something to tie his hands. That was quite... satisfactory. She might be a little older and a little less flexible than she used to be, but her strength and speed were still up to snuff, and those bone density meds were working a treat really, and anyway, if she'd let some silly boy like this shoot her or her protectees, well, she'd be ashamed of herself.

Now, where were the girls?


	5. Chapter 5

“No, there’s another walk in closet here,” Delia said, wiping a corner of the lipstick diagram clear with the elbow of her rather slinky new dress.  
“Oh ho,” Olivia said, “so THAT’S where you and the ensign from Komarr disappeared to that Emperor’s Birthday when we were seventeen.”  
Delia tried to elbow her in the ribs and wipe some of the lippy off onto HER frock but Olivia hadn’t survived a house full of sisters to fall for that one. 

They’d tried their com links but there was no signal. Duv was working so he’d more than likely be outside giving himself ulcers, but Dono had some kind of district thing going on and would burst a blood vessel if they didn’t put a stop to this before the news got too far out into the backwoods.

“I still think we could take them - there were only two,” Delia said.  
“Only two that we saw - what if there are a dozen? Think sneaky,” Olivia advised. “Imagine we’re the Chance Brothers; you can be Fat, I’ll be Slim.”  
Delia snorted (and didn’t Olivia wish Tante Alys had been around to hear THAT ladylike noise!) but then she looked guilty and Olivia crowed quietly. She HAD called it right, then: Delia was sprouting and NOT in a replicator ha ha!

Oh. Which meant that there were two of her. Maybe she’d better do the rescuing herself - well, with mamma and Tante Cordelia, when they could get back to them - and stuff Delia safely into a cupboard somewhere.

And wouldn’t THAT be fun!

“OK then - this way?” Delia sketched a route on her lipstick map - and some Impsec team were going to have a field day decoding and then obliterating THAT when they’d all done! - and Olivia nodded. Team Koudelka: rescuing the Imperium, one bad guy at a time.

They ran lightly, stocking footed, down a corridor and then Olivia went low, Delia went high, and they took the one with the stunner down without a whisper of noise, just like Mamma had taught them. OK then.

Olivia frisked him while Delia tied him up with her tights and his own socks and found a packet of something she realised with a weird sort of frisson was ammunition - exploding ammunition - for one of those time-of-isolation weapons, but no weapon. Apart from a stunner and the box of ammo he had a handkerchief (which Delia immediately put to use as a gag) and a square box thing. She looked at it from all angles and something about it reminded her of one of the things Enrique and Martya always had lying around. Something to do with the bugs... something to... something to switch on the low level field that stopped them chewing their way out of their cages.

She switched it to “off”.

Then spoke into her wrist com. “Hello?”  
“Delia?”  
“Oh, hi Duv. No, it’s Olivia. And -”  
But Delia had snatched the com link out of her hand and was busy reassuring him they were ok and calling off the full-on assault on Stuffed Shirt Central. 

She left them to it and went to find Mamma and Tante Cordelia.


	6. Chapter 6

"Let's assume the worst, just for a moment, till we can get back in communication with Impsec and everyone else," Ekaterin said quietly. "So, your orders, Laisa?"  
Laisa stood up straighter and took a small step away from the Impsec man who'd twisted her arm. Ekaterin was looking at her as if there was something she ought to do, something obvious...

She went over to the cot and carefully took Ezar out of the armsman's arms. 

"Thank you, Pierre," she said quietly, collecting his eyes. Ekaterin and her three Impsec men were all looking to her, and the armsmen would stand with her, she thought - they were Gregor's men, after all. She took another small step away from the two who'd grabbed her and then turned on them.

"So," she said quietly - Gregor was always most Imperial when he was quiet, after all - "are you with the terrorists or were you just taking advantage?"

No-one had drawn a weapon - not in Ezar's presence, or hers - but there was a small movement, each of the men at her back poised to act, in her defence, she thought.

"No, Madame - Milady - Majesty - "  
"Laisa will do, for the moment, Lieutenant," she said to the one who hadn't hurt her. He was white-faced and almost in tears at the thought his loyalty was being suspected. Huh. Just your everyday anti-Komarran prejudice bleeding through, then - THAT, she could live with. The other one?

He was at rigid attention, every vein in his neck standing out.

"Ma'am!" he barked, but nothing more.

She waited a long, long moment, wondering if she was reading it right. Ekaterin didn't move, and everyone else seemed to be frozen too, waiting for her to tell them what to do.

Ezar, woken from sleep, smiled at her and tried to grab her earring. "Not now, lovie," she whispered, but it broke the deadlock. She realised, just too late, what it must have looked like to the Impsec man - boy... 

She imagined his life; a hair trigger of preparation and training and readiness, kicked into action by some kind of alarm, sliding into the Imperial Nursery on a life or death mission to Protect the Heir from... some kind of unknown threat. Anything from a Cetagandan invasion to a Civil War or a terrorist attack. And then instead of his Empress he'd seen a Komarran Woman. A simple category error? One minute he had been triggered into action, and with no enemy to fight he'd invented his own?

Well, it was a plausible hypothesis anyway. If he had been one of the terrorists wouldn't he have gone for Ezar, or sprayed the room with a nerve disruptor, or, or, almost anything would have been more effective than roughing up your protectee. 

"On your knees," she said, and he dropped like a stone. "If the Emperor lives, our oaths are all to him. If the Emperor has come to harm, I need all of the good people of the Empire to help me protect the New Emperor to his majority. If I am Regent, do you serve?"

He put his hands between hers and gave the oath, weeping. Laisa saw Ekaterin's face in the background and that slight nod of approval. Barrayarans, she thought irritably; they didn't have TIME for this! 

"Very well," she said. "Now, does anyone have a working com-link?"


	7. Chapter 7

Alys knew every inch of the palace so while Drou and Cordelia dealt with the stupid boy with the antique gun she went over to the corner by the fireplace. The switch was a little tricky to find, and you had to remember to pull and THEN do a quarter turn and THEN push, but the gunsafe concealed behind the little loveseat opened up and she issued each of them with a stunner and a nerve disruptor, and then redistributed them to Olivia and Delia when they turned up with the news they'd dealt with the other one. Such helpful girls, really they were a credit to their mother. Drou stunned the one she'd knocked out, and Olivia ran off to stun the second one (purely as a precautionary measure) while Delia chatted to Galeni on a com link. Seemingly Olivia had confiscated some kind of device from the second one and had worked out it was probably what was knocking out their communications, so they were now back up and running.

She sighed. The rest of the night was going to be very tedious, she knew. First of all Imp Sec would want to do a complete sweep of the building, then there would be questions for all of them, followed by another more thorough de-brief in the morning. Really, it was too bad. She had an appointment to look at some jewellery designs for Gregor's anniversary gift to Laisa tomorrow morning which would have to be completely rescheduled.

Ah well, her secretary was competent to arrange that. Now, if only they could have a few moments to gather their wits before it all started.

And then she smiled to herself.

"I'll open up the Panic Room" she said to Cordelia quietly. "I suggest you detail the girls to deal with our Imp Sec friends and then follow me - I can't think of anywhere we're more likely to get any peace for the rest of the night than in Gregor's presence,"  
"Not to mention, I could do with another glass of something," Cordelia said cheerfully, "and they never remember to feed you till they're done panicking."

Alys ran her fingers through her hair and pushed it back behind her ears. Simon was in the retiring room; he was perfectly all right, as were Gregor and Aral, of course they were.

She pressed her palm onto the concealed control that disarmed the retiring room's defences and then realised, rather belatedly, she was still holding a nerve disruptor with the dangerous end pointing towards her emperor. But although they were all looking at her, they were all too busy laughing to be worried. Honestly, men!


	8. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five years later...

Five years later

The monthly meetings had been in the calendar for the past five years now, a sacrosanct hour kept free, every third Wednesday or the nearest day before that if the Wednesday was really unavailable. Once the heads of Impsec, Impmil and the Council of Counts' security committee had got used to the idea it had begun to seem inevitable. 

"After all," Count Vorlightly had commented at first, "who could argue with Lady Alys?"  
General Allegre had said nothing after accepting the invitation to observe one of the Monday morning "ladies' exercise classes" run by Drou and her daughters for the Empress, her personal friends and closest staff. And if the head of ImpMil wanted to argue with Lady Vorkosigan - either of the Lady Vorkosigans - why, he kept it very much to himself.

So the Imperial Disaster and Emergency Planning Committee met monthly and was ready for anything. "The Emperor will join us in half an hour," Laisa announced calmly. "Doctor Philipas, please begin." The young scientist, briefed fully a year ago for this by some very large ImpSec people with a fat research grant, a terrifying secrecy contract, and a session with some fast penta, had obviously got into the spirit of the thing and opened his briefcase, trying to suppress a smile.

"Very well, ladies, gentlemen. You are on a visit to the new university bio facility when this happens..."

Three of the armsmen stopped imitating statues against the wall and started screaming. Georg fell to the ground, foaming at the mouth, while Stephan turned away from the Vor and appeared to be losing his breakfast into the wastebin. Kalendar simply clutched his stomach and screamed.

"This room is a secure bio-containment facility. You have a single working com link but no-one is responding, and Christos, Anya and I are facility staff with you in the room."  
"What are you working on," Ekaterin asked.  
"We are pursuing a number of lines of enquiry, principally into antidotes to known bioweapons - which means, of course, that we have samples of several bioweapons in stock."  
"Where is the Emperor?" General Kristianos demanded.  
"As I said," Laisa said calmly, "he will be with us shortly."  
"If this is a secure bio-containment facility, the key question is - *is the Emperor outside the bio-containment*"

The door opened and Gregor, carrying the young Crown Prince, came into the room.

As everyone came to attention, General Allegre said mildly "Are you intending to continue the exercise in the presence of Prince Ezar, sire?"

Gregor smiled. "I was younger than Ezar is now when I had my first experience of trying to make sense of disaster, General. Now, Ezar, we're going to play, just like I said, remember?" He winked broadly at his son, put him into his mother's arms, and then sat down and bit into the foam capsule.

Laisa managed not to smile at the level of ham acting going on in the room.

"Very well, gentlemen," she said, standing up. "First priority: triage -"

Gregor, shamming death side by side with his armsmen, listened with pride as his wife, his sister in law and his generals planned what came next.


End file.
